Sasha Wortzel

(November 2017) Originally hailing from Florida, Sasha Wortzel is a New York based artist and filmmaker working primarily in time-based media. Her work explores the politics of space in relation to race, gender, and queer desire. Her current project with artist collaborator, Reina Gossett, Happy Birthday, Marsha!, follows iconic transgender rights activist and artist, Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson in the hours before she initiated the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. Sasha has recently presented at the Berlin International Film Festival, DOC NYC, Tribeca Interactive, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, the Guggenheim Lab, and New Museum. Her work has been supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, the Astraea Foundation’s Global Arts Fund and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Sasha is a participant in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program and was a 2012-2013 fellow of filmmaker Ira Sach’s Queer/Art/Mentorship. Sasha received her MFA from Hunter College. Sasha is also the Director of Access and Community Programs at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

While in residence, Sasha will be in development of an essay film that makes connections between the historical treatment of the “river of grass” and the pressing environmental and socioeconomic issues Florida faces today.